


The Bad Kind

by trufaxx



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Child Abandonment, F/M, Forgie!, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, repost, show canon adjacent, sorry I'm a dramatic b, this is what bittersweet actually looks like D&D, with book details for flavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 03:59:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18932959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trufaxx/pseuds/trufaxx
Summary: "Arya, I don’t want it. The title, Storm’s End. I’m glad to have a name, but I never asked for the rest of it. Never wanted it. I want you, however you’d have me. I love you.”She wanted to say it back—she felt it in her heart. But she couldn’t be what he needed. She couldn’t stay with him, and telling him her true feelings before she walked away would only hurt him more. Keeping silent was a kindness, truly. And she had one more kindness to give him in time.





	The Bad Kind

**Author's Note:**

> I am reposting this story with a few minor edits post-finale. In my drunken rage after 8.06, I stupidly deleted my fics from AO3 (not to mention my Tumblr and Reddit accounts). After I sobered up and realized that I am an idiot, I decided that I wanted to repost this shortie. 
> 
> My sincere apologies to everyone who commented on or kudo’d this the first time I posted it. Your feedback was much appreciated and I just wiped it out along with the story. I’m a dramatic bitch and I suck. Sorry.

Arya wasn’t surprised to find Gendry waiting at the dock the morning she was set to sail. She’d avoided him at the council meeting, and again when he tried to talk to her afterward, but he was clearly determined to speak to her again.

“My Lord.”

He grimaced. “No. Arya, I don’t want it. The title, Storm’s End. I’m glad to have a name, but I never asked for the rest of it. Never wanted it. I want _you_ , however you’d have me. I love you.”

She wanted to say it back—she felt it in her heart. But she couldn’t be what he needed. She couldn’t stay with him, and telling him her true feelings before she walked away would only hurt him more. Keeping silent was a kindness, truly. And she had one more kindness to give him in time.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

The tears flowed freely down Gendry’s face. “Will I ever see you again?”

A strange look crossed her face before she answered. “One more time.” 

* * *

 

A noise. A squeak? No. A whimper.

Whatever it was, it had awakened Gendry from a sound sleep. He sat up and looked around his chamber. In the dim light of the dying coals of the fire, he could see a figure in the corner. He reached behind him for the dagger that he kept under his pillow.

“No need for that, Lord Baratheon.”

“Arya?”

 She stepped closer to his bed. In her arms, she held a small bundle of blankets and… something. This was the source of the noise that had woken him.

“Is that…” He swallowed hard, realizing what he was seeing. “Arya. Is that a babe?”

“Your daughter.”

At that, Gendry seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Arya sat down beside him on the bed and passed the girl to him. He held her awkwardly, not having had much experience with babes, but he looked positively enthralled by the child in his arms.

“Gendry. Take care of her. Give her what I can’t.”

His head snapped up. “You’re leaving again? You’re leaving _her_? Why? We can be a family. Seven hells, we _are_ a family whether you like it or not. Please, just stay.”

“I can’t,” she repeated.

“Why can’t you? I don’t understand any of this. How can you walk away from your own child?”

Arya ignored his questions. “She’s three weeks old. I’ve just fed her, but you’ll need to find a wet nurse right away.”

She rose from the bed and walked swiftly towards the door, not looking back.

He called after her, his voice breaking. “Arya. What’s her name?”

He got no answer from the empty room.

* * *

Six years passed before her curiosity forced her back to Storm’s End. Arya had learned what she could from rumors and gossip, but she had to know herself. Had to _see_.

She wore an older woman’s face and took a job in Storm’s End’s laundry. She was seeking information, and no one knows what’s truly happening in a castle like the maids and washerwomen.

She saw Gendry almost daily. Sometimes he was with Ser Davos, but more often he was alone. He talked to everyone: maids, stable boys, guards, all of them. This was clearly the normal state of affairs at Storm’s End. She heard several of the smallfolk refer to him as Lord Smith, nothing but admiration in their voices. 

The child, however, she hadn’t seen. A maid told her that Lord Baratheon’s daughter was convalescing after an illness, but her recovery was going well and she was past the point of worry. She would be up and about soon enough. 

* * *

 

Arya was carrying an overloaded basket of bed linens to the laundry when Gendry’s voice startled her.

“Arry, wait!”

She froze. He couldn’t have recognized her. Impossible. She slowly turned to face him, wondering _how_ …

A small creature crashed into her, knocking her onto her arse and spilling her laundry onto the stones. The little wooden toy the child been clutching clattered to the ground as well.

The girl landed beside her, giggling. She looked much like her father, with thick black hair and brilliant blue eyes, but Arya also saw herself there in the girl’s long face and curious expression. 

Gendry caught up to his daughter as Arya started to clean up the spill. He knelt beside them, helping to put the linens back into the basket. “I am sorry. Arry has a wild spirit.”

As if to prove his point, Arry scrambled to her feet and took off running again.

“No need to apologize m’lord. It was on its way to be washed anyway.”

He thanked her and hurried after the girl. Arya tucked the abandoned toy in her pocket.

* * *

 

“What happened to this?” queried Mara, the woman who ran the laundry, as she dumped the even-more soiled linens from the basket.

“The Lord’s daughter was running and knocked me down. It’s all right, no harm done.” Arya paused. “He called her Arry. Never heard a girl called that before.”

“He’s the only one who calls her that. She’s Argella Storm. And I’m not surprised she’s the cause of this—that girl is always under foot.”

_Arry Underfoot,_ she thought, her heart aching a bit. _Of course Gendry calls her Arry. But Argella Storm is good name for the bastard daughter of the Lord of Storm’s End_.

Arya pushed the sentiment aside and continued, “Lord Baratheon was kind. He apologized and helped put the linens back in my basket.”

“He’s a good man. He used to be a smith, you know, so he looks after the common folk better than most. And he dotes on that little girl.” 

Another woman chimed in: “He does. Shame he won’t take a wife and have a few more children. I think he’d be happier for it.”

Mara shook her head. “I don’t. He’s never shown interest in any women. And a man like that? The handsome, unmarried Lord of Storm’s End? _Plenty_ of women have shown interest in him. He’d have his pick. If not for his bastard, I’d wonder if he took after his Uncle Renly.”

Arya had to ask. She’d come for information, after all. “Do you know of Argella’s mother?”

Mara snorted. “No one knows. Was the strangest thing. The babe just appeared one night and Lord Baratheon claimed her as his. Never saw the mother at all. The child was a tiny thing too; she couldn’t have seen a whole turn of the moon when she was left.”

“What kind of woman just leaves a babe behind?” a third woman grumbled.

“The bad kind,” Arya replied. Her fellow washerwomen nodded in agreement.

* * *

She spent a few more weeks working in the laundry, catching glimpses of Argella and Gendry when she could. She spied them mostly in the castle, but sometimes they went out to the cliffs or down toward the shore. Now fully recovered from whatever illness had held her inside, the spirited girl seemed happy and well. And _loved_.

The day Arya left, she saw the pair of them wading in a tide pool, exclaiming over something they’d found in the shallow water. Even after she’d turned away and started down to the docks, she could hear their laughter. She fingered the small wooden stag in her pocket and kept walking.


End file.
